


Raka

by Somnostar



Series: Sci-Fae [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Body Modification, Consensual Mind Control, Dubcon Kissing, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Implied Transhumanism, Making Out, Making Out In Public, Mildly Dubious Consent, One Shot, Science Fiction, Swearing, Virtual Soundtrack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25509760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somnostar/pseuds/Somnostar
Summary: They call her Alice, and she calls herself fae. But who or what she is is not important—all that matters to agent Tommy Adler when he sets foot in Club Raka is the information she has to offer.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Series: Sci-Fae [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1848049
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Raka

**Author's Note:**

> The song Raka by Golden Features and the Presets inspired the plot of this one-shot. Feel free to listen before or while you read as a soundtrack.

Rose opened the door to the back entrance just as Tommy started walking up the steps to knock.

“How’d you—"

“I know you well enough, you don't like to show up late. It's good practice, you know, keep it up."

Tommy walked through the door, and Rose closed it behind him. The hallway was cold, even for the middle of summer. He tugged his jacket closer to his chest as Rose led him to a room on the side.

Everything here in the back was surprisingly dull for a nightclub. All the same cold, grayish blue. No decorations. No nothing. This room only had blank walls, a few chairs stacked in a corner, and several rolling plastic drawer carts. He would’ve thought the fae—“fae”—that ran this place would want to put some glamour into even their storage rooms. That was the point of the last letter he'd read, right? "All that's seen and hidden, no place left untouched"?

Unless, maybe, this was the glamour. Unless the weird feeling of discomfort the room gave him was precisely the point.

“So what’s up exactly with the, um, fae?”

Rose stopped rifling through drawers and turned to look at him. “You’re not that new to the job. You did your research, right?”

“Of course, of course. It’s just, none of it makes sense.”

“I think you're exaggerating a little. It’s just next-level body modding, if you think about it. They’re people who did stuff to their minds and bodies to try and make themselves and everything they touch a little bit weirder. People do weird shit like that to feel like they have a purpose, like they belong with a group.”

“Yeah, no, I get that. It’s the how that I don’t get. Not the how of the mind mods, not the tech stuff. Like, the how of all these people just being passionate about the same general idea, and now all of the sudden they're… an actual threat.”

“You’re getting hung up on the details.” She closed a door and turned around with two black… snap bracelets? in hand. “We can figure out why they’re a threat later. Right now, you've got a job to do.”

Rose put on her bracelet with a series of oddly smooth and artificial clicks, followed by three pings of some electronic dial and what sounded almost like the faint jab of a lancet needle. “Hold your right wrist out.”

Tommy did before he could think to ask first. “What’s the bracelet for?”

“It’s a badge. Going inside the main room without one of these on sets off the alarms. Normally the bouncer gives them to attendees and sets the initial level for the dial, that's the surprise element people usually come here for. Unless you have serious concerns or you're looking to get _really_ fucked up, it's mostly random. So we need the advantage of doing it ourselves.”

Rose bent his bracelet into place. The immediacy of it all made the sound of those clicks even more disconcerting.

“Lemme put this lightly. It’s gonna make a little harder to think straight,” she said as she turned the little dial on the front of the badge one ping forward, “but you’re on the lowest setting possible and you’ll have HQ available through your earpiece to keep you on track. And me, if you need it.”

“Wait, what do you mean? How much harder?”

“I’ve been on 1, it honestly just makes you more a bit more distractible. Happier too, a little calmer, so that’s a plus. That's the appeal of Raka, everyone’s at least a bit more chill. More engaged with the music.”

Tommy’s heart started racing. Happier and calmer hardly sounded like a plus right now, not like this.

“Most people get set to a 5 or 6, so don’t be surprised if your target is kinda spaced out. I got set to an 8 way back when, that was a fucking trip. Had to continue the recon mission another night. You don’t know how lucky we are that they finally figured out how the back lock works. I dunno if you noticed, but like, it's a weird lock.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“Mhmm. Breathe in.”

He did. With no other warning, Rose pressed down on the bracelet’s clasp and Tommy could feel a small prick on the underside of his wrist. That was a lancet he’d heard, he thought, only it didn’t let out—the needle was still poking at his skin, just slightly. He took a few seconds to let the sudden wave of panic run through him. If anything, it made his mind clearer.

“I don’t feel different.”

Rose stepped out of the room and held the door open. “It kicks in once the main floor sensors spot you. Come on.”

Tommy was shaking. How much from the cold and how much from the panic, he wasn’t sure. As the two of them walked down the hallway, he almost wished he hadn’t been assigned to work with Rose. Yes, he knew the two of them were, practically speaking, the right choice. He had a knack for going unnoticed, and more training for retrieval missions than most of the new agents on his level. Rose had plenty of prior experience in leading agents through their first missions, and in deescalating major conflicts. And, apparently, she knew her way around Raka. This was a quick in-and-out retrieval mission, the kind of thing that was easy enough for a first time out in the field, but had the potential to go just disastrous enough to really test the agent’s skill. All the individual pieces made sense.

Still. He needed Davis right now. As an agent, Davis was exactly the wrong person for this mission, better with a shotgun than a crowd any day. But as a person… Davis _knew_ Tommy. He knew how to calm him down, help him reason through things, help him let things go. They’d trained together the longest. They knew each other. Rose was excellent at following protocol, at working with people as tough as she was, but she had no clue what he needed to hear. Davis would know exactly what to say. Davis would be able to calm him. He needed Davis.

Except, he realized, soon he wouldn’t. All this adrenaline would come to a stop once he walked through the door. He’d be happier, calmer.

That, Tommy thought to himself, was the worst part. The inevitability of it. 

Rose stopped before the door. The volume of the muffled bass was slowly growing.

“The badge is synced with the music, so how intense it feels is gonna go up and down,” she said. “Sounds like they’re just about to hit the drop, so if you get it over with and go in now, that’s as strong as it’s gonna be.”

Tommy felt her take his hand. “Trust me. We wouldn’t send you in here if we didn’t think you could do it. You’ll be ok.”

He looked down at their bracelets. The one cool green line on his. The three green-ish yellow lines on hers.

“Are you on a higher setting?”

“I’m just backup, remember? You’re here to get the job done. I’m also here to have some fuckin fun.”

And with that, she pulled him through the door and let go.

Rose was right. It wasn’t _that_ bad. The badge made him a bit dizzy for a second or two, but he acclimated fast. Still, he could notice that something was off, as the pricking sensation in his wrist slowly numbed. The changing lights, the moving bodies, the bass ringing out in his chest—it was all a lot to take in. He felt like he could stand there for a good while and do just that. It sounded nice, way nicer than what he was here to do.

He could just... stay like this.

But the feeling didn’t hold. The job at hand was more important. Tommy walked straight ahead as Rose moved aside to the dance floor.

_“I’m only at a 3,”_ he heard through his earpiece. _“I’ll still be able to keep in touch with you alright. Let me know if anything goes wrong, and I’ll be right there to step in.”_ She laughed at something before cutting out. 

“Will do,” he said calmly. At least now he didn’t feel so scared. Happy and calm was starting to seem like a bit of a plus. Which, Tommy acknowledged, was exactly the sort of thing he didn’t want to be thinking. Exactly the sort of sign that the badge was working on him, changing him. 

All he could really do was not get hung up on that detail.

Another voice came in through the earpiece. _“This is Recon Scout 4. Alice has just entered Raka. Head to the main door.”_

“Got it.” He walked forward determinedly, along the wall where there was still space to. Seeing all the dazed dancers and drinkers around him made him wonder how much he stood out. Knowing the mental state of most of the crowd, he figured it’d be fine. What mattered more was finding Alice.

Alice. Being fae, it almost certainly wasn’t her real name; it made Tommy think Alice in Wonderland. Once at the front door, it wasn’t hard to spot her walking towards the bar. Her bright green hair almost glowed under the black lights, and the bold red lines of the tattoo along the back of her neck undeniably matched what he’d seen in the case file. He waited for her to take a seat before making his way to the bar. He had a plan. Flirting wasn’t exactly his strong suit—he did much better once things were already rolling—but perhaps the badge would help. The thought of bumping his dial up to a 2 to help him loosen up briefly flashed into his head, and he immediately dismissed it. 

“Well, well, what’d you do to get set so low?”

Tommy had just taken a seat next to Alice, and it took him a second to process what she meant. The badge. Getting a 1 took "serious concerns," right? How serious did that have to be? “Oh, trust me, I’m a little surprised I even got in. You should’ve seen me out there, I was so nervous.” There. "So nervous" could mean anything. And since he wasn't nervous now, it'd be both endearing and flattering for him. The words had come out more confidently than he’d expected, after all. The two of them laughed.

“Ahh, that’d be why. Don’t worry, they let guys like you in here more often than you'd think, it's part of the fun. Besides, this is a place for everyone." She chuckled. "The bouncer probably just didn’t want to intimidate you, but I know our last guy loved to set the nervous ones up to 7s and 8s sometimes.”

He laughed again, almost reflexively. He’d somehow gotten into a sort of laughing mood. It was the badge, he was sure, although Alice’s charm couldn’t hurt. She was very charming, he thought.

“I guess I can see why that might be fun for someone.”

“Right? First you get to see them freak out when the dial goes red, and then all of the sudden”—she had bunched up her shoulders to make a point, and let out a sweet little sigh as she dramatically let them down—“you get to watch it kick in.” 

That sounded more sadistic than fun to him, but he set that aside. “Maybe next time I come here, I’ll get set higher. Right now, I think I should take it slow,” he said with a smile.

Alice smiled back, in such an effortless way. “Mhmm. Takes time for some of us.”

Tommy looked down at her badge—he couldn’t count the lines from there without seeming odd, but their orange color told him it was a high-ish number, though she didn’t seem _that_ much more disoriented. From there, his eyes followed the tattoos that winded their way down her arms, a mix of vines and geometric patterns, all in black and red, rhinestone dermal piercings along the way glimmering in the light. A few seemed to emit a soft light of their own. He traced their constellation up to her shoulders, her neck, her eyes. She was gazing intently back at him.

His heart was racing again.

“What’s your name?” 

“Miles.” The alias he’d chosen during training rolled off his tongue. It was oddly fitting now—never give your name to the fae, he knew that was part of the folklore.

“Miles,” she echoed. “Cute.”

Her hand touched Tommy’s cheek and gently brushed forward, as if to pull him in with it. It worked. He stepped off the seat and came closer to Alice, as she leaned in and moved her hand to his shoulder. 

He looked down at her purse, hanging off one shoulder, and part of his mind clicked back into mission mode. She’d made the mistake of not wearing a cross-body bag. All the better for him. That was where she was keeping the letter, he was sure of it. Her dress was too tight against her to possible have any pockets. All he had to do was keep her distracted long enough to open the zipper, grab the letter, slip it into his jacket pocket, and leave with a wink and a mysterious “I have to go.”

_Odd of them to use letters. Part of the glamour thing, maybe._

The music simmered down to a shimmery synth line. His thoughts cleared up, and his heart slowed back down. Alice stood up and tugged lightly at his shirt collar. “Come with me.”

Tommy kept up the pretense of genuine interest, following her up a set of glass stairs. All that was on his mind now was the purse. Maybe it'd be easier than he'd planned, if things were going where he thought they were. The loud music, the badge, their hands moving along each other’s bodies—she wouldn’t notice a thing. 

As they walked along the balcony overlooking the dance floor, he tried to quickly spot Rose in the crowd, but hardly got the chance to before Alice tugged at his arm, brought him away from the balcony, and pinned that arm to the wall. Suddenly, her lips were on his, her body pressed against him. She brought her other hand down his neck and onto his chest. She was warm. His left hand was free, not ideal but not impossible either. He slowly, gently moved his hand down her figure as they kissed, tracing along—

_Right. Bag’s on the other side._

No worries, he could still make it happen naturally. Still keep her body close to his. He brought his arm around her waist and pulled her hips in. Over the slow, tantalizing buildup of the music, he heard a slight gasp from her. “You like that, huh?”

He let out a soft “mhmm” as he reached for the purse’s zipper. He’d meant it. He'd really meant it. He liked it here, liked the way she moved so tenderly and still so passionately. Liked the feeling of her. 

But it wasn't supposed to go this far, he thought. He was supposed to be leaving with the letter right now. This wasn't right. Wanting this wasn't right. It left him feeling uneasy. 

She ran a hand through his hair and he watched it start to fade. 

“Let's make it even better, then…”

He heard a ping. 

Then another, and another. 

He started feeling dizzy again. Opening his eyes, he could just barely see the glow from the badge on his arm as Alice turned the dial, still locked in a kiss with him. Creeping up from yellow, to orange, to red. 

Tommy fought through the growing fog in his head. Through the pull to just shut his eyes and forget about it, to sink back into that wonderful feeling that was her. No. He couldn't do that now. He had to get that letter. He had to think. Open the purse, grab the letter, zipper it shut: each step took more mental reiteration than the last. Alice seemed too enraptured to notice, but as he pulled away from the kiss, she opened her eyes and suddenly looked concerned. She let his arm go. “You feel alright?”

Fuck. Oh fuck, no he didn't. It was getting worse. The bass began to resonate in his chest again. His head was swimming. Aching. He hastily stuffed both hands into his jacket pockets. “Sorry, I… I have to go.”

“Oh, Miles, you’re gonna miss all the good stuff.” She put a hand on his shoulder, which he outpaced. “Stress makes it feel less fun, you know.”

Tommy turned around on the steps and quickly pulled his hands out of his pockets in a sort of “hold on, stay back” gesture. As Alice stepped back, he felt the crumpled-up letter bristle against his arm. He looked down just in time to see it fall between a gap in the stairs, into darkness. 

“I’m so sorry, I, I really have to… I’ll be back.” He dashed down the stairs and into a darkened corner. His heart pounded in his chest as the buildup rose. He had seconds to turn back the 10 Alice has brought him up to before it would fully hit.

Only, the dial wouldn’t budge. Something had it locked into place. He tried to push it towards 9 and it consistently clicked right back. He wasn't _that_ out of it, was he? Was this something Raka would do, make the dials only turn up? Had Rose told him this?

Rose. The letter. The mission. He pressed a finger to his earpiece as he knelt down to grab the piece of paper, which had rolled under the lower steps. “Rose, you there? I’m—”

The crash of the drop pounded against his head and knocked whatever clarity he had left in him out of his skull. Whatever he had been planning to say was lost to him. No words, no coherent anything. Just a slow, shuddering wave of pin and needles, almost forcibly relaxing every muscle they touched. The music coursed through him, leaving his entire body with the sort of tenseness that follows an inoculation. The pain turned to vertigo turned into something oddly pleasant. _Extremely _pleasant. Pleasantly mind-numbing. Mind-numbingly good. Don’t move or it’ll stop, he thought, if one could call anything his mind was doing thought. He simply knew: Don’t stare at the sun, don’t breathe underwater, don’t move a single muscle now or ever. Simple.__

____

____

_“Recon Scout 7 here. Tommy’s not showing up on security footage.”_

____

Jesus fucking Christ, that would’ve been good to know. Rose had searched the main bar, the lounge, the restrooms, the balcony—everywhere she could think of that Tommy might’ve ended up. But there were only two ways to not get seen by security cameras here, and she’d already checked one of them. 

____

Sure enough, there was Tommy, lying under the stairs shivering. She checked the light on his badge—bright red. No time to ask. Certainly no way to get a coherent answer. They had to get out and get the badges off.

____

“Come on, I got you,” she muttered as she dragged him out from under and lifted him up. A ball of paper rolled out from underneath the stairs as she did. At least he got the letter. Not bad.

____

“This is Recon Scout 2,” she said through her earpiece. “I’ve got our agent and the letter. We’re on our way out. Be ready at the exit on Summit.”

____

Tommy was reluctant to move, but not about to put up any kind of fight about it, so the two of them walked slowly to the exit, her arm tight around his shoulders as he staggered. It wasn’t too odd of a sight; anyone who came here planning to dial up to a 10 was pretty much expected to have a buddy. Part of Rose wished she could stay a while longer, the same part of Rose that always wanted to sink back into the music, into the effects of the badge, every time she came. It felt good just being here. Job to do or no job to do, Raka was always a fun place to be, and a terrible place to leave.

____

She stopped right next to the bar to get a bottle of water. Her partner was going to need it.

____

As the two of them walked out, she looked back and saw a green-haired woman at the bar—that must be Alice, she thought—in some heated discussion with a sharply dressed man. The other fae in the case file. The intended recipient of that letter. She hoped Tommy had been subtle.

____

____

Tommy stumbled outside into the cool night air. Without the music so present in his ears, he felt drained, painfully empty, devoid of something. His mind was no less unclear, only different. Less like slow ocean waves and more like a swarm of gnats. The sharp prick of a needle being pulled out of his wrist cut through the fuzziness. He looked up at the woman holding him—Rose, it was Rose—as she handed him a bottle of water.

____

“I’m gonna be nice and assume you didn’t turn your dial up,” she said, unrolling her badge.

____

“No, I, it was Alice. I can explain—”

____

“Not now. Just drink up and get your head back together.”

____

He took a long sip from the bottle. The cold sensation from the water helped wake him up, get his bearings. He and Rose were outside Raka. They’d left. The mission was over. He reached for his jacket pocket.

____

“I’ve got the letter,” Rose said, holding up the paper. “Don’t worry.”

____

A black car rolled up to the exit. Tommy slowly got up, taking a few seconds to wait out the lightheadedness, and followed behind Rose into the ride.

____

____

“I fucked up, didn’t I?”

____

“You did the best you could.” Rose rolled up her window now that it was clear Tommy was trying to hold an actual conversation, not just vent about what had happened. “Was the plan risky? Sure. A little. Does that mean what happened was your fault? I’d say no.”

____

Tommy had his head resting in his hand, elbow propped against the car door. He couldn’t be mad right now. Rose was doing her best too. But “I’d say no” wasn’t exactly all that comforting.

____

“I know this is your first mission, but shit like this is gonna happen sometimes. Knowing how to roll with it is part of the job. I don’t think HQ should’ve given you _this_ mission to start with, but it was a good case in point.”

____

She took his other hand and squeezed it tight. “And you handled it about as well as any new agent could. I mean that. You got the letter, you were confident about it, you did everything the way you should have right up until you couldn’t. That’s a win in my book.”

He squeezed her hand back tighter at the words “right up until you couldn’t” He said nothing back. Just nodded.

“Hang on, though,” she continued, “we should look at that letter.” She let go of his hand and unfolded the paper. Half a minute or so passed in near silence. 

“Alright, I think we know what your next mission is.” She chuckled, and he halfheartedly chuckled back. “Don’t worry, it’ll be a nice changeup from Raka. Less conversation, more action. Let’s go over it when we’re back at HQ, sound good?”

“Mhmm.” As much as he’d need some time to recover, a different kind of mission down the line did sound nice. If it meant better understanding these fae, even more so. Why they’d make a place like Raka and then do business there was still beyond him.

“Ooh, speaking of less conversation more action, you mind if I plug into the aux, Tommy? I kinda wanna play some Elvis, but not if your head’s still hurting or anything.”

“No, I think different music might help, actually. Just don't go too loud.” 

“Elvis sounds good to me,” the driver said. 

A few seconds later, the music started up. A little quieter than it needed to be, in all honesty. Tommy sat back up and leaned his head back on the seat. He really would need Davis when they got back, but right now, this wasn’t half bad.


End file.
